What makes a fight last longer?

[the Jester]

It's been often observed that many fights at high levels are extremely fast. Yet they can last longer. What are some factors that contribute to longer high level fights? And I mean reasonably balanced fights, not a 16th level party against a CR 30 enemy.

I'd say more opponents, obviously... and miss chance (from displacement, incorporeal, or whatever). What else?

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Healers on both sides. This also has the advantage of driving the players nuts.

 

[Xarlen]

Buff spells. Spells that hamper (Slow, Walls, Grease, Reverse Gravity, Fear, Dispels), Healing (Regeneration, Fast Healing), Hit and Run (Shot on the Run, Cover, Dimensional Dooring), etc etc.

For example, imagine a fight between a party and a Frost Giant Fighter who has Shield Other cast on him, with his cleric minion in the back-ground casting heals on himself?

 

[Forrester]

Banning Haste.

 

[Drawmack]

Describe the action really slowly

Seriously though, good tactics.

 

[the Jester]

Banning Haste.

Actually, the party I run in my campaign has a lot of time-related stuff going on (and therefore haste spells and such) and even so there've been a couple of long fights.

I think another thing that makes a huge difference is good saving throws. If you can end the fight with a flesh to stone in round one, there's not much of a fight, is there?

Spells that hamper- I agree, that seems to make a difference. Slow down the damage being dished out and everybody lasts longer.

Regeneration seems to make a small difference unless it's ten points a round, what with the ludicrous amounts of damage high-level characters dish out in 3e.

 

[wolff96]

The ever-popular reinforcements.

Just send in the next wave of low-level fodder when the first wave is running thin. After two or three waves, THEN have the main villain appear, just as the short duration buff spells are wearing off.

I've used this tactic to great effect against sorcerers and wizards who always buffed themselves to the gills. Those short duration spells run out and suddenly they're ready to run!

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Another good way to do it is tactical movement on the part of the enemy.

Put some enemies behind a short wall, with a pit trap in front of the wall. Let them retreat while archers elsewhere begin pummeling the party. Repeat several times and you have waves of combat that can last a very long time.

 

[Squire James]

I toy with the idea of simply multiplying "boss" HP by x3 or even x10 (while keeping everything else the same). If the rules start looking like Final Fantasy, might as well use Final Fantasy boss mechanics!

This prolongs the fight, but doesn't really raise the difficulty of the encounter much (say +1 CR for x3 HP, +2 CR for x10). It works best for monstrous opponents, but I suppose a human "charged with evil power" might get the extra HP too. I wouldn't use this more than 1 monster per 3 sessions or so; it works better if the PC's aren't expecting the effect every time they see a Big Bad Boy.

You'll need to deal with "save or die" effects somehow... high SR, Death Ward, and incredible Fortitude saves come to mind. Changing all the death effects to a (high) fixed amount of damage based on the level of the spell (level x level x 5 is a decent starting point) might work as well.

If the players stone you for breaking any D&D rule, just make sure any villain they meet has the best defensive spells available to them. For high and epic levels Prismatic Spheres and Time Stops should become fairly common.

 

[Enkhidu]

What about taking a page from P-Kitty's book and layering spells to counteract dispel magic (as seen in his story hour with the fight vs an advanced, buffed to the gills black pudding)?

Or having the baddies strategically place AntiMagic zones to make spell casting more difficult?

 

[Forrester]

Buff spells. Spells that hamper (Slow, Walls, Grease, Reverse Gravity, Fear, Dispels), Healing (Regeneration, Fast Healing), Hit and Run (Shot on the Run, Cover, Dimensional Dooring), etc etc.

For example, imagine a fight between a party and a Frost Giant Fighter who has Shield Other cast on him, with his cleric minion in the back-ground casting heals on himself?

On that note, one trick I thought of that I haven't tried myself (or seen mentioned) is using Imbue with Spell Ability to allow another to cast Shield Other. Charm Monster a troll to be your buddy . . . Imbue him . . . he casts Shield Other on the tank in the group . . . the troll hangs back somewhere else (after all, the duration is one hour/level) . . . and there you go. That way the cleric doesn't have to spend all his time healing himself -- some random NPC can do it instead (either a Charmed troll or maybe some actual ally locked up in a castle somewhere surrounded by clerics).

Just a thought.